"I have a mind like a steel... uh... thingy." Patrick Logan's weblog.

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Tuesday, September 02, 2003

Distributed (and evolutionary) version control

The build instructions make this system seem a bit fresh yet, but Ted Leung points today to a very interesting version control system, especially for distributed open source evolutionary systems. In particular...

  • defining different "acceptance criteria". monotone's update algorithm permits sorting and filtering by certificate; this means you can tell it to ignore changes until someone you trust is willing to attest to their quality, either by code review or test results. simply committing code does not force any other end-users to run it. (this feature is only partly finished -- the UI for it is still wired to one setting).
  • decentralizing trust. monotone's operations are all based on checking RSA certificates. there is no central authority to which you must appeal to participate, or to be granted "commit access". on the other hand, nobody has to trust or accept your certificates, unless they happen to like you.

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.